SLT does article on Don Bradley

[_EAllusion]

Your god wants self-awareness. My god wants puddles. The universe is equally fine-tuned in any case.

There is a subset of fine-tuning arguments in the literature that would address this. They would argue that the intrinsic prior probability of a god close to classical theism that is interested in human life is high and much larger than my god who has a puddle fetish. For brevity's sake, I think those efforts go awry and I recommend looking up Gwiazda on Swinburne.

[_consiglieri]

Glad he found his way back. But more mature thinkers don't have to follow a path that includes unbelief. We're too grounded to be tossed about by every wind of doctrine and we can quickly see the anti Mormon rabbit holes for what they are.

Memo to file--bcspace is a more mature thinker than Don Bradley.

[_harmony]

Memo to file--bcspace is a more mature thinker than Don Bradley.

I suspect he's probably older anyway.

[_harmony]

Now, I will say that while I was not convinced by all of Don's religious arguments, as he became an atheist, moved to the Bahai, then became a theist, and then a Christian, I have been very persuaded by many of his arguments about Mormon history.

So you don't think it's a tribal thing?

[_Kishkumen]

So you don't think it's a tribal thing?

Meaning?

[_EAllusion]

EA,


Right now I'm caught up in the thick of historical and textual details, rather than exploring philosophical and scientific argument on God and religion. My ambition is to get a doctorate in religious studies and teach. If I'm able to do that, I'd like to address, in my work, many larger questions regarding religion in addition to doing my detailed textual work

I look forward to hearing your comments. I think you understand where I was going with this, but I wanted to flesh it out a bit more.

Let's take the problem of evil. The list of responses to this are finite. You occasionally see a new wrinkle in the way a soul-making theodicy or a unknown purposes defense gets presented, but the core arguments and counter-arguments don't change a great deal. Plantinga's response to the logical problem of evil can fairly be considered a game-changing event in that it forced atheological focus on the evidential argument from evil, but it didn't fundamentally change the fact that the problem of evil remains an intractable problem.

I've seen you interact with the theodicies and defenses that constitute the modern theological reply to the problem of evil. And I've seen you be very effective showing them to be inadequate. I don't see where you'd have room to refute your former self. It's virtually impossible that you've devised an entirely new response and I am skeptical that you can overcome the very refutations you embraced when it comes to the standard replies. So, I'd like to see how new Don responds to old Don. I realize I don't get to see that, but it leaves me personally curious.

Luke Barnes' Paper, Scheduled to Be Published, on Cosmological Fine Tuning

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/111 ... 4647v1.pdf


Victor Stenger's Response to Barnes

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1202/1202.4359.pdf


Barnes' Response to Stenger

http://letterstonature.wordpress.com/20 ... gent-life/

Kudos,

Don

I'll take a look at this over the weekend. I would point out that I think Stenger is a mixed bag on subjects like this - mostly because his professional interests cause him to get wrapped up in cosmology and miss the forest for the trees - and it is better to go to commentary informed by philosophers of science.

[_Philo Sofee]

Glad he found his way back. But more mature thinkers don't have to follow a path that includes unbelief. We're too grounded to be tossed about by every wind of doctrine and we can quickly see the anti Mormon rabbit holes for what they are.

Don't stumble on all that humility, bc.

I was younger than he was when I was exposed to The Godmakers movie. Didn't shake me.]

That's child's play. You at one time said you thought you could reduce Thomas Riskas's book "Deconstructing Mormonism" to mere ashes. I am waiting to see what you make of it. I would like to see an honest engagement of it if that's not too much to ask of an apologist (I can dream pie in the sky too in wishing this, because I have my doubts it will occur). Riskas is far beyond the Godmakers. Why pick on child's play when you have something much more powerful to destroy? I suspect I will see the obvious apologetic pap concerning it, as usual. It certainly won't surprise me. I'm pretty much past the point of expecting to see apologetics actually discuss the issues, especially with Mormon apologetics.

[_Philo Sofee]

And somehow, I already knew at that age that Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage and was defending evolution vis a via LDS doctrine......

I don't doubt you knew this stuff at age ten, but judging by your overall content on this website, you hit the ceiling by age eleven.

(by the way, having your beliefs set in stone by age ten isn't something to brag about)

+100!!!

[Guest]

The explanations offered for my return to belief, both on this thread and on previous threads when I first returned to the church, are simple to a fault and assume that I've engaged with religion rather simplistically.

That's possible. But this time, you do have an article in the newspaper about your return to faith along with gigantic pictures of you. ;) And the article does reinforce an idea that non-believers are getting desperate to explain the odds of life and resorting to wild sci-fi arguments, so you have to discount others' shallow evaluations of you somewhat given the context.

While I certainly have faults, how does my decade-long long record of online argumentation suggest that under-thinking and being simplistic about religion are among them?

I'm extremely picky about what I consider good arguments for atheism. I've never been taken by New Atheists like Sam Harris and yeah, I find their work simplistic. I'm not saying I'm smarter than they are; I'm certain Dennett, Harris, and Dawkins are much smarter than I am, but if I'm not impressed then I'm not impressed. EA is about the only person I've known online for a long time who I think "gets" atheism well enough to cause me concern if he ever finds God. There is a lot that goes into that assessment, including a little knowledge about his life, it's not entirely an intelligence thing even though intelligence obviously factors in.

If I'm wrong in my conclusions, which as a human I may well be, it isn't going to be for a dearth of complex engagement with the issues.

That's true. But, I hate to make a religion out of atheism. The journey might matter for theism, but it doesn't matter to me at least, for atheism. The fact that there is no God is just, well, a fact much like the earth revolves around the sun.

Really, though, I need to learn to live with people making judgments on me that I find implausible or even know to be false. Being misjudged is, for all of us, the at least occasional cost of putting our thoughts out in public. And none of us should shy away from doing that just for fear of being misjudged.

I agree that you should, especially given how public you've made your thoughts. Hey, I don't have anywhere near the stones you do in this regard. If I ever put my face in the newspaper along with my position as an atheist, I don't think I'd dare to look at the comments. I'd probably live in fear.

[_Markk]

KG wrote...I'm not trying to down Don or his experiences in any way. Whatever makes a person happy, I'm all for. Even if it means living a life in a Church designed by a con-man. Many people go through the motions in Mormonism and make it work for them. But some of the lesser intellects like myself, actually care if the damn thing has already been proven via evidence, to be false.

This is why folks call it a cult...Mormonism rips common sense out of folks hearts. Joseph Smith and BY were scoundrels and con men, on a good day...yet because we were raised the way we were, if Mormonism is wrong...basically everything is wrong.

I don't know Don, and I'm sure he is a great guy, as those that know him claim...but what does that have to do with being lied too from the day we could first learn.

I'm sorry, but I feel sorry for the guy that having digested the truth about the church and Joseph Smith and BY, and then having to go back is beyond me.